Oh "Deer"!!!!!!

My Proud Hunters!!!!

Well...my boys are addicted just like some other hunters around here! There is just something about getting up at 3 something in the morning, going out in the cold, and sitting there waiting for a deer. Not sure what that something is, but there is something! Now getting up to go shopping.....different story! :0) But anyway, Terry (with Braden right along beside him) got an 8 point about a week and a half ago and Austin got a 6 point this morning. This was Austin's first buck. He got a doe when he was around 11 with a bow but this was the first buck. Now Braden is itching to get one. Terry just picked up the meat from his yesterday and loaded it into the freezer and then Austin got his today. So we should be stocked up for a while!

The picture at the top and this one are of Austin's 6 point deer.

This is a picture of Terry's 8 point deer. (Braden was beside him and I think Braden was more thrilled than Terry.) Notice Carmen is in this picture and I thought, "Oh no, she doesn't have a bow! And I am not talking about a shooting bow...I am talking.....a bow in her hair!" That doesn't happen often with us in a picture!!!! :0)

I think they have "Buck Fever!"

Pictures....anyone?????

Okay....we are again having some type of fundraiser. This time it is for Austin's Baseball Team. It is an Antiquities picture done in sepia tone of your child. They supply the clothing, props, etc. It is a $10.00 donation and you receive a 10 x 13. Of course, you will have the option of buying different packages but are not obligated to. Our team gets the $10.00 just for you buying the coupon. The more people that actually have it done....the more money our team receives also. The pictures are going to be made November 21st at Owens in the Art room. If you can, please help us out. Just comment back and I will get you the information you need. I am going to try to paste this url to the website so you can see some of the examples. Thanks and I hope to hear from some of you! :0) http://www.antiquities-studios.com/aboutus.htm

A Rough Week for Braden....and Us!

It has been a rough week for Braden....and for the rest of us....worrying about him. He had a place on his knee (where he had fallen on concrete about 2 weeks ago) to end up getting infected. I thought it had healed but it must not have and just ended up a mess. He had a bump to come up on it that hurt. Then he got tripped at school and fell on it. From there on...we started our trips to the doctor. Our school nurse thought it was infected, and we went off for trip number 1. He ended up putting him on an antibiotic and culturing it for Staph. Yep...it was Staph. Okay...maybe the antibiotic will do it. Well..the next day it looked worse. But after trip number 2, the doc decided maybe we were on the right track. Well.....

Day 3...this started happening.



Day 4, it got worse and looked like this.....and he ran a fever at one point of 101.4. It finally started draining some after this picture.



Then....Day 5....this is what it looked like.

Day 6...it looked AWFUL!!! I guess we failed to get a picture.

Day 7...it started looking a little better. Trip number 3 to the doctor.

Now...another problem. Braden's face had started swelling. The doc sent us to the hospital to get some blood work done. Well...later on that night, Braden had broken out in a rash to go along with the swelling. By this time, I am on the computer looking for allergic reactions to the medicine among other things. By the time I got to talk to the doctor about 11:30 p.m. he had already developed hives, also. Benadryl time! Thankfully, it helped. We were close to having to visit the ER. Kodak moment after blood work. See how his cheeks are red and his face swollen....(It may be hard to tell in the picture...it was dark and I took it in the van.)

Now we are assuming Braden is allergic to sulfa. The bloodwork looked great (thankfully) so now we have changed his antibiotic and hope we are on the right track. His knee is looking better and has started peeling now.

He is still broken out and still having some issues with the hives or something. This is what it looked like on Tuesday night. This is on his outer thigh. It started out clustered and spread apart. Weird....

We hope and pray we are on the right track now. It has definitely been a rough week for all of us!

Trick or Treat!

Well, Halloween has come and gone again, but we all had fun. We just have a tradition that when we trick or treat, we end up at my parents house or as I call them more now because of the kids...."Meemaw and Papaw's" house. We meet out there and she usually has chili and beef stew and all kinds of goodies to eat! Just about every year my kids are just ready to get to Meemaw and Papaw's house. Here are a few pictures of our Halloween this year.

Braden and Carmen before the "big haul." Braden was a hunter and Carmen was a ballerina.

Carmen and "one of her moves."

Braden "taking aim!"

Braden aka "The Hunter"; Carmen aka "The Ballerina",

Layton aka "Spiderman", and Landon aka "Tractor Farmer!" (That is what he called it!)

Carmen had a party at Preschool on Friday. We left her hair down that day and then put it up on Halloween.

GWO--Girls Weekend Out! :0)

Okay...I am finally posting our "Girls Weekend Out" pictures. Amber, Denise, and I enjoyed a few days in the Smoky Mountains over Fall Break. We left on Thursday and came home on Sunday. Our husbands surprised us with a trip just for the "girls". My first reaction was "No, I'm not going. I can't go." I have never done this before...leaving my kids and husband just for a pleasure trip! (I had only been one time and that was to a Reading Conference when Austin was little for a night or two and I believe I cried when I left!) I "teared" up when I would think about going for a while and then Terry told me that yes I was going. Well....I ended up not only going but deciding to take an extra day off and leave early that morning! While we were there we ate and shopped and ate and shopped and ate some more and shopped some more! :0) We also took out a little while and went to the picnic area on the road up to the Chimney Tops. It made us want to start a yearly tradition! (Actually...Denise said more like a quarterly tradition!)

The trees were not changing alot while we were there, but here they were some.

Awwwwwww....relaxation!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The tree really wasn't that high off the ground!

Wasn't it pretty????

Let's do a little climbing on the rocks. Be a little adventurous!





And speaking of adventurous.....

I believe at this point, I was thinking...should I???? And my dear friend Amber was saying, "If you fall in, we are not coming in after you!" :0) I decided I better stop where I was!





Yeah!!! We made it! I think about this time after our carefully chosen path out to the rock....we were seeing these 2 young boys jumping from rock to rock. But you know the difference is because they had on their tennis shoes and we were barefooted. That had to be the only difference, right??????

This is one of those times we were waiting to eat....again! This time...The Apple Barn.



This is how far we had to park to shop on Saturday. We wanted to shop pretty bad, didn't we?Yes, that is grass not pavement!

Thanks girls for a fun weekend, thanks to our husbands for our trip, and thanks to our kids and our families for helping us out and working together to allow us to go!

Braden is 9!!!

Today was Braden's 9th birthday. He celebrated yesterday when he and a friend (along with Carmen and me) made a day of it. We started out by going to Walmart and he picked a cookie cake to celebrate with. Then we went to eat and had the cookie cake for dessert. Then we headed bowling! It was fun. (I am so out of shape that I am sore today from bowling!) After bowling, we headed for a game of putt-putt. Then we went to Chick-fil-a for an ice cream cone. After that we went to Pet Depot and he picked out some fish for his birthday. It has been a while since we had some and he was wanting some for his birthday. But of course when we ended up getting home and getting the old aquarium cleaned and set up....lucky me....no filter. I think packrat here actually threw some stuff away and threw away the last filter a while back. So back to Walmart I go last night about 9:00 to get a new filter. Now the fish are in their aquarium in their new home!

Here is another of his presents...the newest addition to his Magic Treehouse Book Collection.

This afternoon he had his baseball team party. They got another trophy and a shirt. On the back of their shirts it says, "Back to Back County Champions"

We still have to work in the family parties for Austin and Braden. That will just extend their birthdays and make them last a little longer I guess...huh? They both want to have a party with family!

My......how time flies....he's already 9. Happy Birthday, Braden. We love you!

Happy 14th...Austin!

Can you believe Austin is 14??? Today was his birthday. We had a lot going with school, basketball practice, baseball parent meeting, and a few other things....but did manage to work in opening a few presents and giving him his favorite cake--cheesecake!

Roll Tide! (one of the presents)

Hmmmm....do you think he could wait tables?? Extra money!!!!

Here are a few pictures that have absolutely nothing to do with Austin's birthday, but I haven't posted in a while so....

Here is Carmen and her "best bud" Emma!

Surely Braden didn't really mean to be aggravating, did he????? :0)

Being silly.......

Just a couple of pictures of Braden, Carmen, Emma, and William.

(I believe some new jeans are in the future for Braden.

Look at those knees!)

Finally...a picture of all 3!

It is not that often I get a picture of all 3 of my kiddos to post. Austin was not at all excited about the picture but finally got tickled in the last picture, I think and I got a smile. We were ready to go to church services Sunday morning and I just noticed that somehow they had all ended up with blue. So...Kodak moment! I was going to take them outside and we headed out but........it was raining. So we opted for the front porch instead. Just my normal stair-step picture. They

are all getting so big!

Sunflowers, Sunflowers, and More Sunflowers!!!

Leanne beat me to it by getting to the sunflowers. Mama had told me about them but you know me...I put things off. Anyway...we finally made it. They were beautiful!!!! There is the patch on 127 and there is another patch on Myers Road. There are fields and fields at both places. They are definitely worth the trip over there. The ones on Myers Road seemed to be "hanging their heads" and were not as easy to walk right up to as the ones on 127 that had been mowed right up to. It was much easier for Carmen to get beside them on 127. Here are a few of the "near 40" pictures that I took! Yes..."near 40" pictures...and I had a hard time picking out my favorites. But here are some of them.

These are Carmen on 127.

These were also on 127.

One of the fields.



There was one drawback......bees!!!! Carmen didn't like them the bees at all!
I think this picture shows her reaction!

These next pictures are from Myers Road. We were facing the sun, so the pictures really have too much light in them, but oh well....

Only one of the fields on Myers Road...

One final picture at Myers Road.

I would definitely recommend everyone "checking" them out. They are beautiful!!!